VOL. XLIII

No. 11

13-March-2000

OPEC

OPECs Hard Choices

The following article was written for MEES by Robert Mabro, Director of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies

The oil-exporting countries took 15 months (January 1998-March 1999) to agree upon and implement production cuts of the magnitude required by a skeptical and intemperate market for correcting the declining trend in prices. They all knew that a small percentage reduction in production of the order of 7-10% would most probably lead,...